URL : http://siepr.stanford.edu/programs/OpenSoftware_David/FLOSS-US_announcement....

FLOSS-US

The Free/Libre/Open Source Software Survey for 2003

[1]http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft

A Survey of Software Developers

FLOSS-US is an online survey currently being conducted by researchers at Stanford University's Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). It is a part of the study of the Economic Organization and Viability of Open Source Software undertaken by SIEPR's Knowledge, Networks and Information for Innovation Program (KNIIP) which is being supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

This survey has been designed in cooperation with Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (MERIT and Infonomics, University of Maastricht), who led the FLOSS survey of Open Source/Free Software developer communities, carried out with the sponsorship of the European Commission during 2002. [[2]http://floss1.infonomics.nl]

To establish comparability with the previous sample of voluntary respondents, FLOSS-US asks questions on the same range of topics that the original FLOSS survey addressed, including:

� Motivation: monetary / non-monetary, reputation, pleasure, creativity, jobs

� Expectations: what do you expect of others? What do they expect of you?

� Organization: efficiency, quality, comparison with commercial software

� Law: intellectual property licenses, authorship, public domain

� Technology: preferred programming tools

In addition, developers are invited to provide information about their experiences and opinions on several other issues, such as: extent and intensity of OS/FS activities and project roles; relationships with commercial enterprises based on Free/Libre/Open Source software; support of OS/FS projects by proprietary software firms.

Announcements of this new online survey will be posted in languages other than English, and at sites likely to be visited by developers in regions outside as well as within western Europe and North America.

We will make public tabulated responses for each of the questions as soon as the survey period is closed, and the results of our further analyses will also be published on the SIEPR/KNIIP website. We are committed to protecting respondents' privacy: no personal identifiers will be stored with your answers and responses will be reported in aggregates that will prevent inferences about individual identities.

If you are an Open Source/Free Software developer, please assist this research: go to the questionnaire at [3]http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft

and fill it out!

At the end of the questionnaire you will find links to to the SIEPR/KNIIP website and further information about our project. When you have submitted your response there will be an opportunity to comment on the questionnaire itself, and to request any of the publications that will be based upon analyses of the survey data.

References

1. http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft 2. http://floss1.infonomics.nl/ 3. http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft